Chương 6
“Are you mad?” she asked.
Dominic crouched down.
He could handle enemies.
He could handle business partners.
He could handle men twice his age trying to intimidate him.
He struggled with a child asking a simple question.
“Yes,” he said.
Ava touched the sleeve of his jacket.
“Are you going to be mad forever?”
The question stopped him.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I’m not.”
She nodded as if that was enough.
Then she walked back toward Margaret.
Thomas watched her leave.
“That girl might be the only person in this house who says exactly what she means.”
Dominic looked at the papers.
“She gets that from my mother.”
“No.”
Thomas put on his glasses.
“She gets that from being young enough not to know she is supposed to hide everything.”
The comment followed Dominic after he left the office.
Lucian was in the upstairs library.
The same room where Dominic remembered attending holiday dinners as a teenager.
Back then, he had thought wealthy families argued differently.
He thought money made problems cleaner.
He had been wrong.
Money only changed what people were willing to hide.
Lucian stood near the fireplace with a drink in his hand.
He had cleaned the blood from his eyebrow.
His suit had been changed.
The man standing there looked composed again.
That was the thing about Lucian.
He rebuilt his image quickly.
“You shouldn’t be here alone,” Lucian said.
Dominic closed the door behind him.
“You requested access to my father’s records.”
Lucian did not deny it.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know what you were going to find before you found it.”
Dominic almost respected the honesty.
Almost.
“That is the first real answer you’ve given me tonight.”
Lucian looked at him.
“You think this is a game.”
“No.”
“You think I’m the enemy.”
“I think you know more than you’re saying.”
Lucian walked toward the window.
“When your father died, everyone wanted something.”
“Money?”
“Control.”
“From who?”
“From everyone.”
Dominic waited.
Lucian rubbed his forehead.
“Your father built a company that looked stronger than it was.”
“That’s not what the records said.”
“You read a letter.”
“I read his words.”
“You read the words he wanted someone to find.”
That stopped Dominic.
Lucian turned.
“You never asked yourself why your father left those documents behind.”
Dominic said nothing.
Because he had.
And he had avoided the question.
His father had not been careless.
Not with anything.
Not with money.
Not with business.
Not with people.
So why leave evidence hidden where someone could eventually find it?
Lucian saw the hesitation.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The part where you realize you might not know him.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“You don’t get to use my father against me.”
“I’m not.”
Lucian’s voice lowered.
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“You pushed my mother.”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
Dominic stared at him.
Lucian looked away.
“I lost control.”
“That does not happen to you.”
“No.”
Lucian looked tired.
“Usually it doesn’t.”
For a second, Dominic saw something unexpected.
Not guilt.
Something closer to shame.
It disappeared quickly.
“You think I wanted this?” Lucian asked.
“This family falling apart?”
“You benefited from it.”
“So did you.”
The words landed.
Dominic did not deny them.
For years, he had benefited from the power his family built.
He had told himself he was different because he made different choices.
But he had still inherited doors opening before he knocked.
People listening because of his name.
Opportunities because of old relationships.
The truth was uncomfortable because it was not simple.
Lucian stepped closer.
“Your father made enemies.”
“Everyone makes enemies.”
“No.”
Lucian shook his head.
“Not like him.”
Dominic watched him carefully.
“What did he do?”
Lucian looked toward the fireplace.
“He destroyed people when they became inconvenient.”
The sentence sounded rehearsed.
But the emotion behind it did not.
“My father hurt people,” Dominic said.
“Yes.”
“And you stayed.”
Lucian looked at him.
That was the question he did not expect.
The room became quiet.
Finally, Lucian said,
“You think leaving is always the right thing.”
“No.”
“Then you understand.”
Dominic did not.
Not completely.
Because Lucian was doing something dangerous.
He was mixing truth with excuses.
That was how people protected themselves.
They admitted enough wrongdoing to appear honest while hiding the part that mattered most.
“What happened to the originals?” Dominic asked.
Lucian’s expression changed.
Small.
Almost invisible.
But enough.
Dominic noticed.
“The documents.”
He stepped closer.
“Where are they?”
Lucian looked toward the door.
“You should ask your mother.”
Dominic felt something tighten.
“My mother doesn’t know.”
“Are you sure?”
The question bothered him because Lucian sounded certain.
Dominic returned downstairs twenty minutes later.
Margaret was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea she had not touched.
The mansion kitchen was enormous.
A place designed for employees, not family.
Yet somehow it was the most human room in the house.
There were scratches on the wooden table.
A loose cabinet handle.
A refrigerator covered with old magnets.
Things nobody had bothered to replace because they were not part of the image.
Dominic sat across from her.
“Did you know there were originals?”
Margaret became very still.
That was enough.
“Mom.”
She looked down.
“I knew where they were.”
The answer felt like another fall.
“Where?”
She wrapped both hands around the tea cup.
“I didn’t tell you because I was afraid of what would happen if you found them.”
“Where are they?”
Margaret looked toward the hallway.
“Your father hid them somewhere he believed only one person would understand.”
Dominic waited.
His mother’s eyes met his.
“He hid them in the one place he thought I would never search.”
The silence between them felt heavier than the entire mansion.
“Where?”
Margaret took a slow breath.
“In the house where we lived before he became powerful.”
Dominic stared at her.
The old family house.
May you like
The place his father sold after years of saying it was too small.
The place Dominic had not visited since he was a child.
